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Talk:Alpha-class Star Wing/@comment-454133-20190429224928
On Thursday I played X-Wing Mario Kart and chose this as my ship. Max points was 48 (small ships only, no Lone Wolf or Deadman's Switch), so I gave Major Vynder Advanced SLAM + Xg-1 + Ion Cannon, giving me a first player bid of 1. The idea I had in my head was to get ahead of the pack, and then just SLAM like crazy and stay too far ahead for anyone to stop me even with Blue Shells, kinda like real Mario Kart. :D Turns out that was more challenging than I'd anticipated, because I was up against two RZ-1 A-Wings and an RZ-2 A-Wing, and they are far, far more maneuverable. For example, not being able to 1-turn really hurt. They were about as fast as I was much of the time -- their boost did a great job of keeping up with my SLAM, but the course was extremely narrow and we bumped a lot. And I had terrible trouble making those turns on the first lap, while the A-Wings had a very easy time of it. I spent the whole game despondent that I'd made a bad ship choice. However, near the middle of the 2nd lap, I decided to gamble all on a shortcut turn, and it panned out. I'd gotten better at planning turns, and I'd picked up an item that would let me get in an extra boost using any 1- or 2-speed basic maneuver. I landed perfectly in the gap, and was able to race ahead of the pack. From there I picked up triple bananas and dumped them behind me (bananas drop mines that would ionize ships that hit them), and started speeding ahead as fast as possible. We ran out of time as I crossed the finish line for the 2nd lap. We were supposed to go to a third lap, and maybe I'd have experienced tragedy on the way, but I was about a third or fourth of the course ahead of the next ship, and the game store was closing. Turns out Mario Kart mode takes a long time to play. :D The rankings actually jumbled a lot right at the end -- the guy who was in first all game (Arvel with Outmaneuver + Intimidation) ended up in last, and after I spent all game in last place struggling, I managed to get way ahead in first. The Arvel player was exceptionally good, but a mistake and some unfortunate circumstances slowed him down, and my shortcut put me just barely ahead. Once I got ahead of everyone, my ship behaved exactly as I'd originally expected: I was able to SLAM every turn and just speed way ahead. And by then I'd shaken off the unfamiliarity with navigating the straight walls and sharp angle turns, and was maneuvering quite well (finally). It helped to have no one in front of me to bump. :D Some things I learned: 1) High Initiative ships are not a good idea. You want to move first so you can plan your maneuver and have some reasonable hope of pulling it off. The bump-fest shot a lot of people's plans to pieces, especially mine all game. 2) I never landed a hit with an ion cannon, and often I didn't try to shoot. I really only wanted to shoot the player in 1st place; shooting other players could put them behind me, but I needed them focusing their efforts on messing up the guy in first so his lead wouldn't grow too much. Perhaps instead of a weapon, I should have spent the points on maneuvering, like maybe Afterburners on a TIE Interceptor or especially an Aethersprite. 3) This course was abnormally narrow, but even then, I perhaps should have chosen a maneuverable ship instead of a maximally-fast one; or at least, a low-init pilot that wouldn't be so inhibited by bumps. Making those sharp turns ended up being really difficult, especially when I moved last. 4) I'm glad I didn't go with Tractor Beam; this particular course was so narrow, I can't imagine the boost or roll being able to move targets in a direction I wanted very often. 5) Once I was able to separate from the pack, my ship worked extremely well; in fact, exactly as I imagined. The trick was actually getting away from everyone. Much like real Mario Kart, escaping the tussle can be extremely difficult, but once you're way ahead it actually becomes much easier to play because no one is affecting you except the odd blue shell. They could have shot through walls as we passed in opposite directions, but that's less of a threat than blocking my movement. Overall: it was fun and I want to play this mode again!